Vishen LakhianiFounder of Mindvalley | NYT Bestselling Author | Transforming Lives Globally

Meditation for Children (3/4) | Adora Svitak

24 Jun 2014 · 2 min

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1:36

A speaker (Adora Svitak) argues that introducing meditation in schools benefits children by reducing behavioral issues and improving concentration, citing a school pilot program and personal observations. The speaker emphasizes practical challenges in implementation—teenagers may find it hard to self-initiate meditation during class—thus supporting inclusion of guided meditation within school settings.

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I think that introducing children to meditation is an amazing idea. I remember a few years ago I saw TV programs briefly mentioned that a school had all these cool pilot programs and one of them was getting the kids to meditate and that they saw so many fewer behavioral issues and a much greater concentration. So definitely, even if someone is coming at it from this very skeptical attitude of, oh, meditation is just for a bunch of hippies at a retreat or something, as an extraordinarily conservative view, then you have to look at data that shows that it definitely improves kids in many ways, but definitely also from a personal viewpoint. I think that meditation would help so much because we often find that life is so much about the go, go, go and really gives us time to pause or slow down. Especially when I look around at my classmates who are continually drowned in tests and prepping and finishing homework at all hours of the night. If they simply took some time and understood, wow, meditation could really help me here, that would be great. It really necessitates, I think, learning how to do that though, because it's very difficult for a 15 year old like me to just say, I'm going to go meditate right now in the middle of language arts. So definitely having it in schools would be important. It.